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The Inquisitor’s eyes flitted nervously to the crowd around them as they strolled back into the ballroom. He could feel her hand shaking in his; how she gripped his fingers tighter when disinterested eyes lit up behind silver masks.
First time they’d touched in public. He wondered if she was resisting the reflex to pull her hand out of his before anyone else spotted them.
Even though it had been her suggestion to finally come clean now, before the entire assemblage of the Inquisition and who's who of Orlais didn't mean it was gonna be an easy thing for her to go through.
Public opinion was the exact thing she’d been afraid of since the beginning. The spectre that had haunted her even after they got together officially. Fears that being linked to a former Ben-Hassrath with a salacious reputation would harm her reputation as the Herald of Andraste, and sully her divine right to lead the Inquisition.
He didn't blame her. The Inquisition only held the power it did as long as they had the weight of the Chantry behind it. For them to allow her, a Dalish apostate, to lead them had taken a lot of convincing, not to mention a few bribes and possbily a couple of quiet assassinations. Better if he didn't know the details.
"Second thoughts?" Bull asked under his breath, as one song ended and the orchestra readied for the next.
Ellawyn's eyes blazed into him, and she hissed through gritted teeth, lips hardly moving, pointedly not looking at everyone staring at them. "Don't give me an out. Not now."
"Yes, ma'am." Bull smirked, then led her onto the dance floor smooth as any lordly gentleman, pulling out all the stops and enjoying it far more than he probably should.
El’s pulse jumped in her throat. She swallowed. The orchestra raised their instruments.
“Come here,” Bull purred, and took her into his arms.
It was an important step for her. For them. Things might be different back home after tonight. Their people would notice, even if the Orlesians didn't.
Her anxiety wouldn't let her enjoy it, though. So he'd enjoy this enough for both of them.
"It's gonna be fine," Bull murmured to her doubtful expression. "You know I don't lie to you."
He'd made a promise that he wouldn't put the Inquisitor, or the Inquisition, in danger. That whatever happened between them, the mission came first.
If Bull thought going public would damage their reputation, he wouldn't have asked her to dance. But tonight, any news about the Inquisitor's love life would be a footnote compared to the attempted coup. People would be far more interested in the dramatic end of the Grand Duke and his juicy plot than the fact that the Inquisitor danced once with a big scary mercenary.
Even if they suspiciously disappeared together for a little while afterward.
Certain people at Skyhold would likely want to have a word with him when they got back, but Bull could handle that just fine without worrying El about it.
The tension in her face eased enough for her to smile a little. "I know."
Then the music began, and he did his best to make sure she didn't have space to overthink this any more.
The Inquisitor was a better dancer than she let on. Not practiced in Orlesian steps – too fluid in her movements for their stiff style – but she caught on quick, mirroring him like it was second nature. She had that elven light-footed grace, which covered a lot of sins. But she stumbled some in the beginning, distracted, her nerves overcoming the mask of Inquisitor confidence.
“Look at me,” Bull commanded quietly. “Nobody else here. Just you and me.”
Ellawyn resettled her attention on Bull, a relieved, shy smile gracing her face at the same time a soft blush colored her cheeks. Then she’d relaxed in Bull's hold, trusting him to move her around the floor, mirroring him with instinctual ease. She'd always been pretty good at that. Somehow, without training, she could read him, anticipate him. Her body and his communicating on some silent level all their own.
At least, she had the appearance of relaxation. He felt her stiff spine through her uniform. The muscles locked ramrod straight. Nervous. Even after she'd been watched, targeted, backstabbed, gossiped over, and ridiculed all evening, this was the moment she feared most. Feared people's reactions because of her precarious place of power.
Her reluctance to go public didn't offend him. He knew the deal. Both of them came from races of people that had a long, ugly history with humans. For two of them to be together, publicly, and in places of power, was tricky. Risky, if the wrong people had a mind to do something about it.
But Bull was more or less on top of the world right now. He hadn't realized it until now, but the simple fact that he was here in the uniform of the Inquisition, allied with a motley crew of powerful people, had fixed something inside him he'd been missing. He was part of something again, something he could believe in this time – something good. He'd played a role in saving the day and they were well nigh untouchable now.
It made him cocky. Made him want to take full advantage of this power, to revel in it, push it to its limits.
Maybe even to stake his claim on the Inquisitor, in front of their Maker and everybody. To give a quiet, confident "fuck you" to everyone who had called them slurs this evening.
El held power over the most powerful woman in Orlais, arguably in Thedas. And he had power over her.
Fuck. He liked the thought of that.
"Relax," Bull said easily, through a devil-may-care smile. "You won this entire room over tonight. They'll gossip, but they're not gonna burn you at the stake."
"Easy for you to say," she muttered under her breath. But her shoulders dropped a little, visible tension easing. Only the invisible tension now, the kind only he could feel. "I think they were only impressed I wasn't some tattooed savage or meek, abused servant."
"Yeah. Gotta say it was pretty satisfying to watch." He squeezed her waist. "I'm proud of you. Didn't know if you would say yes."
El's blue gaze flicked to him, eyelashes fluttering shyly under the praise. Her lips thinned, and her brow creased as she concentrated on her feet.
Bull was one to talk. Even as they danced, and he felt it an oddly easy thing to take her in his arms so publicly, after months of carefully avoiding anything more than a passing brush of fingers where someone could see them. Way too easy. Natural, even.
But they weren't at home. He couldn't let his guard down yet. They were never entirely safe, and certainly not safe here.
He couldn't stop scanning the perimeter, glancing past her at the swirling shapes of the gawking crowd, ears pitched to hear their shocked gossip with no small amount of pride.
Bull hadn't seen any of the former clients he'd feared running into tonight, and none of his surveillance had led him to believe they were in attendance. But he still didn't trust a single masked face in the room.
Then Bull noticed El was doing the same thing he was, and turned her chin back toward him with his index finger.
"Eyes on me," Bull reminded, his voice low.
He wanted to take over the responsibility of keeping them safe. Even if it was just for the duration of this dance, and then they went back to being the Herald of Andraste and her bodyguard afterward. He wanted her to not have to be on her guard when in his arms.
Those big eyes took him in like there was nothing else in the room.
"We can stop," he offered, just as quiet as his command.
"No." Ellawyn gave him a meaningful look. Determination in her eyes – almost an order. Don’t you dare give me an out.
Bull got it.
She hadn't said katoh. And he didn't need to treat her like glass.
She was stronger than she looked.
Finally, he made himself stop scanning the perimeter and let himself enjoy the eye contact, the ability to touch her in public like this. Claiming her as he hadn’t ever had the chance before. His heart thudded with the gravity of it.
Neither of them had done anything like this before. It had been real before, sure, but now...
Not having to hide his feelings was a trip. The possibility of being almost normal felt weird. Good, but still fucking weird.
El was taking a big risk tonight. All the months of sneaking around and avoiding each other lest they draw suspicion, being careful not to look at her too often, talk to her with too much familiarity, resisting the constant urges he had to touch her in a thousand small ways – they were ending all that tonight, and with a bang.
Bull snorted to himself at his own private little pun. The idle daydream he’d entertained of sneaking El away with him grew into a full-fledged plan.
He was the only member of the Inquisition she'd taken the dance floor with. Not someone they might have considered respectable, like Cullen or Blackwall or hell, even Dorian had some rank and titles the court could respect, even if he was a 'Vint.
Bull was nothing but hired muscle to these assholes. A dumb brute, not worthy of more than a passing glance. And yet he had the hero of the hour -- shit, of the decade -- in his arms, with no eyes for anyone else.
As the music slowed and faded, he felt both impossibly smug and a little disappointed it was over.
Ellawyn, meanwhile, was flushed. Flustered. Her cheeks pink and eyes shining, her breath coming faster than he’d expect for taking a simple turn around the ballroom.
"Thanks for the dance," Bull said, giving her a teasing smirk. Then, just for good measure and to be a dramatic son of a bitch, he gave her the most regal, stuck-up courtly bow and kissed the back of her hand like some fucking chevalier.
The color in her cheeks depended. They were really getting looks now. Whispers that were hardly quiet enough to even pretend to be concealed.
Her hand jolted like she was resisting the instinct to pull away. Maybe she’d hiss at him to stop.
She did neither.
He let his lips linger on her delicate skin a little longer than strictly necessary.
Finally, as Bull straightened, Ellawyn found her voice. "Well, if they weren't suspicious before, they certainly are now."
She was trying to joke, but the way her eyes still darted around the room to the gossip and gazes fixed on her, he thought she might be regretting this decision.
"Nah," Bull said easily, as they left the dance floor side by side. "If you want people to forget they just saw us together, all you have to do is spend the next hour dancing with other people."
He needed her to not have regrets.
Ellawyn said nothing, just pressed her lips together as if the idea didn't appeal.
"Or," Bull countered, low in her ear, emboldened. "If you really want to cement some scandal before we leave, you could disappear with me for an hour or so."
Her eyes flew up to his, and he met them with wicked promise.
The night had been rough. Their mission had been successful, but just being in this fucking place was taking a toll on her. He could see the cracks in her armor that she was doing a damn good job at hiding.
The more she had to perform, the more in control of herself she had to be, suppressing herself in favor of the Inquisitor – the more she would need to cede that control later.
She needed the responsibility of the Inquisitor taken away from her. Possibly by force. She wore the title like armor -- protected her when nothing else did, here surrounded by her gravest enemies, but it was a heavy burden, too. She needed it and she hated it. And sometimes it was hard to shed. Because without it she was utterly vulnerable.
But she was safe with him.
El was watching him with a mix of fear and wide-eyed interest. A look he knew well.
"Disappear where, exactly?" she whispered. "And…for how long?"
He grinned, unrepentant. Her curiosity gave her away. "Just long enough to find an empty room and for people to notice we're gone.”
Her eyes widened even further, her voice becoming a whispered hiss. “Bull, we can't! A dance at a ball is one thing, but sneaking off together...the scandal–”
“You saved the empress's life tonight, you can do whatever the fuck you want. That includes getting fucked. Right now.” He flicked his gaze up, double checking their surroundings at a glance, then subtly circled the soft inside of her wrist with his thumb. “Nobody can say shit to you. You’re untouchable. With…one exception.”
Her eyelashes fluttered, the slight touch having the precise effect he’d predicted.
He let go, breaking the connection, and El lifted an incredulous brow in a silent, sardonic question.
It wasn't a no.
Bull could tell by the subtle shifting of her expression – the hesitation, the way she chewed on her bottom lip without giving an answer – that he’d won her over.
But he'd give her a minute to be sure.
He winked and gave her a subtle pat that sent her away from his side. "Think about it. Go mingle a little. I'll be back for you."
—
Ellawyn did what she was told. She mingled. Played the role. It was automatic, at this point. Her body went through the motions, but her mind was far away, with images of Bull's hands ripping the gold buttons down her red uniform coat, invading beneath her shirt, diving down to her bare skin and closing over her curves with that possessive hunger she'd seen gleam in his eye.
What was he thinking? Some dark closet somewhere? A hasty, dirty coupling like two servants afraid to be caught?
Her thoughts and pulse raced. She was sure her cheeks were flushed and Bull, wherever he'd gone, was fully aware and smirking about it.
She didn’t who she talked to, what she said. Their gilded masks blended together, their snooty accents saying nothing of importance. If they insulted her under their breath, insinuated anything unsavory about her dance with Bull, she didn’t notice.
Ellawyn turned down all other offers to return to the dance floor.
Which, of course, was a very loud and obvious message that nobody gathered would miss.
Bull had disappeared, somehow, in the crowd, and her eyes kept searching for him over the shoulders of the courtiers.
Time seemed to hold its breath.
Was this really something she’d do? Sneak away at a party? Here, with the most important nobility of the empire surrounding them?
She never would've thought that was the kind of thing she'd do. But then...maybe she hadn't begun to understand who she truly was until now.
Her shaky reputation could be in tatters if they were caught. The Inquisitor with a Tal-Vashoth in the Winter Palace? She'd give the salacious gossip papers a dream of a headline. And possibly topple the entire Inquisition's standing among the powerful elite that they had worked so painstakingly to earn.
Josie would have to work overtime to reel them back from a blunder of this magnitude.
With Bull, though…she wanted everything. Everything he offered, everything he tempted her with, even those things she didn't know existed, she wanted to experience them all. To make him happy, yes, but also – to live what little life she had left. Her world had been small and restricted and dictated by others her entire life. Now, she had a chance to take hold of something else, something dark and risky and completely unlike the limited prison of prim responsibility and duty she'd kept herself locked inside all her life.
If he promised they wouldn’t get caught, she believed him. Hadn’t he done things like this dozens of times? He was an old hand at secret trysts at political functions, surely.
She wondered when that thought had become reassuring, rather than intimidating.
El withdrew from the crowd slowly, her anxiety racheting up the longer she went without spotting Bull. Kept herself to the perimeter of the room, kept her eyes open for Bull. For a seven foot tall horned giant with an eye patch, he should have been easier to pick out of a crowd.
But she knew well that Bull could disappear completely when he wanted to.
Then, suddenly, Ellawyn felt him behind her. A wall of heat and intent. Knew it was him without even turning to look, as surely as she could feel the sun on her shoulders.
She expected the words the moment he said them. Knew what her answer would be.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bull murmured in her ear, sending a shiver of anticipation down her spine.
His voice was a sweet purr, a dazzle in her blood that made her woozy with temptation. When his hand touched the small of her back, gentle and warm, he hardly needed to exert any pressure to move her with him.
Bull steered her along the wall of the ballroom and she went willingly, his hand solid reassurance at her back that kept her anxiety at bay, close enough his body shielded the touch from prying eyes. El hardly dared to breathe until he nudged her to the left, escaping into a nondescript servant's door into a quiet, shadowed hall.
"Are we even allowed to–" El stopped herself short with a cut-off laugh. They hadn't been "allowed" most of the areas they'd trespassed in tonight, and that hadn't stopped them from leaving a trail of bodies through the palace.
"What if we’re missed?” El whispered, a passing glance behind her to reassure the hall was empty and they hadn't been followed.
Bull gave her a cocky smirk and a wink. "Gotta be honest, that's part of the appeal for me.”
Her face fell as she thought too long and hard about the consequences. "My advisors will know."
"Yeah, who gives a fuck though? Tell them to mind their own fucking business. Better yet, I'll do it. Pretty sure Cullen's been waiting for an excuse to punch me for a while now."
"Bull."
"Relax. It was a joke. Mostly."
“But the courtiers…" Her protestations were token. Things she was supposed to say. Her feet still went where he directed her.
He chuckled low. "You've earned the court's favor. If someone sees us duck out together, oh well. What better way to show Orlais you're just like them? You know how many of these rooms I had to scout to find one where people's weren't already fucking? Come on, this way."
El didn't really have much rebuttal for that.
The heady rush of running up against that risk, facing those fears that had plagued her and nearly prevented the possibility of happiness with Bull, was still running hot in her veins.
Which is probably why she wasn’t putting up a fight. As practiced a spy as he was, few would wonder where the Inquisitor had disappeared to when her very noticeable Qunari dance partner also came up missing.
But this particular hall was silent, the orchestra music growing distant and muted enough that she felt reasonably safe letting Bull usher her through an ornate door which he unlocked with a key, and lock it again behind them.
There was already a fire lit. The room was empty, decadent, a lush bed in a golden four-poster dominating the center.
Ellawyn whirled on Bull and her breath stuttered at the dark, hungry look in his eye. “Whose room is this? And how did you get a key–"
He was on her in an instant, his mouth cutting off her sentence on a fierce and hungry kiss so fast that all thoughts fled. She welcomed it. Needed it. After the events of the night, all the careful preparations and painstaking threading of the needle to uncover the assassins in a palace full of lying, murdering snakes, sneaking around the palace in places off limits and struggling to return before they were missed, gathering evidence and maneuvering it all to to just the right advantage…she needed this badly.
She wanted to be owned. To stop having to think. To give herself fully to his capable hands.
And Bull was just as determined to take her.
His mouth interrupted her questions, ravishing her with the scratch of stubble and ruthlessly clever tongue stealing her breath..distantly she felt him walk her backwards until her bottom pressed against the edge of the bed, pushed into it by his heavy hips.
It was all she could do to hold on.
All the while, his hands were busy untucking her shirt, unbuttoning her red uniform coat until it hung open, urging it impatiently down her arms and heaped carelessly to the floor.
"Thought about this all night. Fucking you here, in this place, under their noses," Bull growled, his movements hurried but very deliberate, not at all sloppy. "You were really something tonight. Outplaying them all. Making them take you seriously. So fucking satisfying to watch you wipe the floor with those smarmy bastards."
"Political maneuvering gets you in this kind of mood?"
He laughed, rich and genuine and surprised. Then he yanked her pants down in one rough jerk, taking her smalls with it, and gave her a feral, hungry grin. "Yeah, when you're doing it. But the other shit too. Making them realize how dangerous you really are. Seeing you wearing other people's blood." He licked into her mouth as if he could taste it, and suddenly his huge, rough hands were beneath her shirt, squeezing and massaging her breasts over her chemise. He was always so…all-consuming. Branding her with his heat and forceful touch.
She couldn't help a quiet moan, and Bull let out a satisfied growl in response.
"You see the way people looked at us on the dance floor?"
How did they look? She hadn't been able to look away from Bull. He'd told her to keep her eyes on him and ignore everyone else. It had helped at the time.
Now she could hardly dare to meet the hunger in his eye. Too intimate, too all-knowing. Her blood rushed loud in her ears, dizzying as his hips pinned hers to the edge of the massive bed.
"Seeing people go from "oh shit, they're totally fucking," to eye-fucking you, looking like they wanted to watch." His eye glittered, dark and dangerous and fiercely proud. "You did so good tonight. And you're going to be good for me now, aren't you, kadan?"
Ellawyn melted at that. She always would. That word, what it meant to him. How he knew how much she needed the reassurance that she was good, and had done well, and made him proud. To be in his esteem was the highest of compliments.
Words failed her. She nodded urgently, cupping his face in her hands, rough beard against her palms.
He raked his teeth along her thumb then ducked to her throat in open kisses, wet and urgent.
"My good fucking girl. You deserve to get fucked so good, too. You want that, don't you?"
He could say anything now and she would still breathlessly, wordlessly whine agreement, her arm around his broad shoulders to keep him close, only able to hold onto him for dear life.
One finger traced down her collarbone, tugging the top of her loose silk chemise down to bare her breast, closing his lips over her nipple with soft tongue and shocking heat. Her low back arched of its own accord, a bolt of lightning sparking through her in a direct line from his mouth to between her thighs, where her inner muscles clenched desperately into nothing.
He did the same on the other side, then lifted her, hands cupping her ass, to the edge of the bed. She froze as his head ducked further, hot gusts of breath across her belly in counterpoint to the scratch of his beard. His hands braced her hips, encouraging her thighs wider to accommodate his shoulders and avoid his horns.
Then his mouth was on her, enveloping her in the brightest, best sensations she could imagine, and all coherent thought left her mind. Hands supporting her weight behind her until her arms shook. Not able to keep up with him, with what was happening. Soft, slick suction, his tongue licking inside her.
Her head swam. All she could do was feel, receive. Until he abruptly stood and flipped her, her toes finding purchase on the rug as he bent her over the bed, forearms bracing her chest to the covers.
"What–" Startled, she tried to raise up on her forearms and look back at him. he pressed her back down to the bed, pinning her with one hand to the side of her head so that she could look only at the gilded headboard.
"Nope. Stay down." Bull was always so calm, so amused and cocky like this, completely comfortable dominating her without any effort at all. Enjoying himself, taking his time, anticipating what she'd do and steering her back to what he wanted her to do, without a hint of anger or impatience. "You're gonna be a good girl for me. Stay still and take it."
She needed that energy. Needed that control taken from her. Her body gave in to his command and relaxed under him, but he didn't let up the pressure keeping her down.
Pinned and helpless. It frightened her how much she craved to feel this way. How much it settled something inside her.
Bull nudged her feet apart. She heard the jangle of his belt, felt his clothed body against her naked thighs and shivered, shocked.
He wasn't even going to undress. Just take her like this, like something he was owed, fast and raw.
The thick head of him nudging between her legs was too much too fast, but she welcomed it. Wanted the intensity of her body stretching before it was ready. To be made to accept it. El could only make incoherent, needy whimpers, urging him not to stop, she was fine, she wanted this.
As soon as he'd worked properly into her entrance, Bull gripped her hips and slammed home, impaling her in one brutal thrust.
Wordlessly she cried out and gripped the covers, back lifting off the bed in an instinctive move to escape the deep bruised feeling of him hitting capacity inside her.
But the brief flash of pain was overshadowed by deep satisfaction and faded, almost instantly, as he kept himself still and deep, almost more than she could handle.
One hand bruising at her hip, the other brushing over her coiled braids as if looking for a handhold before deciding instead to anchor around her throat -- in the same moment he pounded into her once, a slow and deliberate pulling out, a deep and invading impact driving back in.
She made a strangled sound, overwhelmed, her brain unable to make sense of it all, until finally her ability to think simply...dissolved away.
By degrees she convinced her muscles to relax. To take him without resistance. To accept her fate.
All the while Bull held her hips still, unable to pull properly away, but she didn't even try. He gave her a minute to accept the feeling of being stuffed full before her body was entirely ready, made to stretch to capacity. To accept it.
He leaned over her, their differences in height allow him to kiss along her spine in slow, confident reassurance without jostling her painfully deeper.
"Good girl. Take it. Just like that." Soft, encouraging praise, his voice roughened by lust. It made her reflexively clench inside, and she felt him pulse in response.
He could always feel it, when she was ready for more. A slow pull back, a slower, deeper push in. Letting her feel every inch retreating and filling, retreat and impale until she almost reached back to stop his inexorable push, his rock-hard muscles unyielding to her touch.
Instead, she relaxed even further, until pain was a memory.
One huge, heavy hand laid between her shoulder blades, pressing her into the mattress. Then he adjusted, thought better of it, and the hand instead moved to the back of her head, cupping the base of her skull and anchoring her body like a butterfly pinned to a board.
She stifled a small, surprised noise, somehow taken to a new plane of sensation. Yes, she thought desperately, words far beyond her reach. Yes yes yes please keep doing that.
He drove into her relentlessly, mercilessly, while pinning her, helpless to do anything about it. And her body sang with relief.
Echoes of the first time she'd asked him to be rough with her. Take what he wanted. It overwhelmed every other sensation in her body, blasted it all away. Every doubt and fear and too-near memory and sick, ancient grief and deep impotent rage that had suffocated her tonight, he purged from her like poison. There was nothing else now but him taking ownership of her. There couldn't be. Iron Bull was so all-consuming a force that nothing else could exist inside her the same time he was.
It was getting harder for her to separate herself from the Inquisitor. She needed him to dominate the Inquisitor out of her, bring her back to her own true self, armorless and fragile, in the only place left she could allow herself to be those things.
His hand at her throat held her with just enough strength to own and control but not constrict. The sharp stab of fear that had come with it faded into safety. He had her. Wanted her. Needed to own her, mark her as his, maybe as much as she needed to be wanted and desired and claimed as his.
He was unforgiving, knowing her body wasn't used to the size of him but making her take it anyway. She concentrated on the feeling of being invaded, the discomfort of it as welcome as the pleasure. Wanted this raw, animalistic coupling to consume all rational thoughts, consume her, make her nothing else but his. No one else could own her. No one else.
He was the only one who never asked for more than she could give.
Trusting her fragility to his expertise, his careful application of his strength, just enough to force away doubt and fear and inhibition. She was safe with him, safe to whimper and moan and cry out with abandon, strong enough to take him even at his full strength.
He reached around and beneath her, thick muscled arm cording down low across her belly, fingers delving to where he was inside her. He meant to bring her pleasure, she knew. But the night had been so fraught that her mind couldn't relax enough to allow her to let go like that, not here in uncertain, unfriendly surroundings where anyone could interrupt them at any time.
Her body and mind were exhausted. She didn't care about an orgasm tonight. Didn't think it would even be possible.
She wanted this – to be taken, to be owned, to be so overwhelmed with the sensation of him filling her rough and deep, too but for her tense body, the pleasure of him invading deep within without worry for herself. To block everything else out, wringing something good out of this night that was just for them.
She could only manage to weakly grasp his forearm, feeling the taut bands of muscles working as his fingers played with her intimately. A silent gesture to stop.
But he understood. The muscles stilled beneath her grasp, instead banding as one to hold her in place to take every relentless thrust.
She let go, relaxed and unresisting. Riding out whatever he wanted to give her, whimpering with the pleasure each heavy thrust of deep invasion until he growled and buried fully into her, forcing himself so entirely within that she yelped and couldn't resist trying to get away, if only by a fraction.
He eased back just enough that she didn't feel speared internally, and El let herself come back into her body slowly, a tender sort of pride she'd never admit at feeling him empty himself inside her.
As their breathing calmed - Bull's rough-edged with low growls, hers soft with lingering whimpers from the intensity of it all - Bull's hands on her turned tender, petting her hip where he'd dug his fingers in. Stroking across the nape of her neck through a fine sheen of sweat, following the curve of the base of her skull around, to the longer curve of one ear and back again.
He didn't pull out, and her body continually pulsed around him, the pressure inside her less intense but still present, still full. Bull draped himself over her back gingerly, kissing along her exposed skin wherever he pleased as if they had all the time in the world. Each one felt somehow like praise, like reassurance and reward.
The care he took with her was unlike anything she'd been granted by anyone else, and she revelled in it. The more intense he was with her, the more gentle he was after.
She loved both sides of him.
Bull took both of her hands and dragged them to the small of her back, clasping them together in one large hand like a prisoner's handcuffs. She was limp in his hold, still panting, but the awkward stretch pulled across her shoulders.
She didn't care.
"When we get home, I'm going to tie you up," Bull spoke slow and soft in her ear, making a shiver run down her spine that he absolutely felt, nipping teasingly at her ear in response. "And I'm going to take my time with you, see how many times I can make you come in one night."
She gasped a few breaths, comprehension returning slowly, along with her ability to speak.
"Maybe...it can only be just once," El murmured back brokenly. Letting go like that had always been difficult, consumed as she was by guilt that her own pleasure was a self-indulgent waste of time. She squirmed a little in his hold, uncomfortable with the thought - with the pressure to perform the way he expected her to, not wanting to disappoint or have him think she didn't enjoy this, even when she did.
He didn't ease up at all. He was still inside her, still owning her body inside and out.
"Maybe," he conceded, kissing the side of her throat. "Or maybe nobody as determined as me has ever tried. I think it'll be fun to find out."
"Bull," she whined, her voice whisper-thin.
"Tell yourself you can't, if you want. It'll just make me more determined to prove you wrong."
With that smug confidence smirk in his voice, he kissed her cheek and stood. Keeping her hands trapped at the small of her back with one hand, he eased out of her at last. Fine quakes of aftershocks trembled through her thighs.
She winced, her cheeks hot at the alarming rush of heat following in his wake that for a moment made her think she was bleeding -- at knowing he had full view to see all.
He didn't let her up, even when she made the attempt to, driven by some need not to make a mess, to leave evidence, to be inconvenient. Was this part not disgusting to him?
Instead, Bull let out a pleased, animal rumble in his throat, one finger sliding into her, into the mess he'd left of her, drawing more out. She clenched her fists, nails digging in, and screwed her eyes shut. She would let him make her experience this part. Part of her wanted to know he enjoyed everything about this, about what he did to her body, even if it made her feel terribly, frighteningly exposed. She still wanted to be made his, and she couldn't hope to understand why.
Then, still without releasing her hands, he yanked her clothes back up her legs. Without cleaning up. She immediately felt the fabric soak and cling against her skin, and felt an embarrassing clench in her chest.
He's going to make you go back out there like this, she thought with a stab of fear and some thread of twisted delight from the depraved part of her.
It had been a long time since they'd been this intimate. Weeks of late night stress, preparation, and travel leading up tonight had taken their toll, and they'd been surrounded by the inner circle almost every moment since they'd arrived in Halamshiral, all of them crammed into the one manor house that felt plenty big and private until you wanted to sneak your clandestine Qunari lover into your room.
All the pent up stress, the loneliness of the past weeks collided with the the care he had taken to thoroughly wreck her beyond reason or speech – it all hit her like a gut punch the moment he left her body.
And then, with the overwhelm of finally having him back to her, the revelation that they'd basically just publicly announced their attachment to the entire country…
The tears came swift and intense, and she buried her face in the blankets and held her breath to stifle the sobs that wanted to escape.
He held her down with one hand until her lower half was mostly covered, then flipped her onto her back to finish the job of lacing her trousers. Still looming large over her, face satisfied and smug and mischievous, knowing what he was asking her to do.
"I want to smell me on you," he said, low enough she thought she'd misheard. "I want to know you can't go a second without feeling the evidence of me between your legs and wondering if everyone else knows."
"Bull," she whimpered again, because how? How?
"I know. I'm being unfair." He leaned down to kiss her mouth, offering no further explanation or excuse to soften his possessiveness. He was being unfair. The end. No apologies. He did what he wanted with her. Unless she said katoh, she had given him that power. And she loved that he used it with abandon. "I want them to know you belong to me."
A rush of heat and unnamed need flared to life inside her. Someone who wanted her not for who she could be for them, but for who she was - flawed, uncertain, not meant to be anyone's hero. "I want that too," she breathed.
Bull grinned, then bent his head to her bare breast, his mouth on her for a moment with an odd tickling sensation. When he straightened, she realized he'd left a deep red mark on her left breast.
"That's just for us," he said, smiling smugly as he pulled her upright and kept her steady as she regained her feet, head rush making her off balance, and using that as an excuse to close her eyes. "So you know."
He left her red coat on the floor so she was covered on top only by a silk chemise, then tugged her onto the bed with him, tucking her into his side, arms around her. Safe.
The tears kept coming, and she hated them. Ruining everything, as always.
Every time? Was she going to cry after every time? He'd think her too emotional and too delicate, just like everyone thought when they saw her. Too much work to deal with, too sensitive, too much –
Bull didn't notice, at first. The tears were a hot rush in her eyes, uncontrollable, sobs threatening in her throat, but she prided herself that maybe she had become practiced enough at hiding her emotion that he wouldn't notice.
She was wrong.
She breathed in through her nose a little too loudly. The sniffle drew Bull's attention shot back to her face like he'd heard an arrow strike, immediately shifting from wary concern to understanding sympathy.
"Aw, sweetheart, you're okay." He rolled her closer to him so she could cry against his chest without being observed. The gesture -- the understanding -- brought a fresh wave of silent, hot tears soaking his smart red jacket. "Did I break you?"
"No." She sniffled again, clearing the pathetic teariness from her voice. She was going to be a little sore, but this was the kind she liked. Evidence of him that lingered. "It was everything else. I'm sorry, I always–"
"Shh," he said, his fingers stroking over the braids he'd done himself, down to her shoulder, then back up to her cheek, back and forth. "You're all right, sweet girl. I got ya. We've got as much time as you want. Didn't mean to fuck ya until you cried, but I'd be lying if I said I feel sorry for it."
She burst into quiet laughter as a few new tears escaped. "I'm not sad," she whispered, hoping he'd know he hadn't done anything wrong.
"I know," Bull said gently, kindly.
I just love you so much I can't express it any other way.
But she already felt pathetic enough. Maybe she could tell him this later, back at Skyhold, where she felt more comfortable than in this stranger's room.
"I'm okay." She made to get up, and was surprised when Bull simply held her captive right where she was.
"El, if you haven't realized this by now, you getting emotional after is like a reward for me. You don't have to be strong right now. You know that."
She looked up at him and found him already smiling at her, patient and amused. Then she sighed. "I know."
"Yeah. I like this part too. So we'll stay here until you feel ready to go back out there. I'm in no hurry, personally."
Neither was she. Settled somewhat, the need to cry faded into the background, and she settled her cheek against his chest to draw more of his calm steadiness into her. In his heartbeat and strength. Savor every moment of peace they were able to steal.
Bull rumbled a satisfied sound, his stroking fingertips dipping beneath the blanket to find her breast with soft, idle touches. If she could have purred, she would have. She could never have enough of the easy, casual way he touched her intimately, each touch reassuring her that she was wanted.
"Needed that," he said gruffly. "Been too long. Missed you."
She pressed her forehead to the hollow between his neck and shoulder, wanting that oblivion back, wished she could lose herself in the slow and steady wave of his breathing. Wished it could be just them, and that the outside world wasn't so insistently calling.
"Love you," Bull said quietly, as his arm tightened briefly around her.
Ellawyn's heart stuttered. For a moment she couldn't speak, emotion bursting in her chest.
The words felt momentous, coming from him unbidden. She knew he was still unused to saying it, let alone feeling it. It was an act of bravery of his own, a vulnerability he rarely allowed, to offer it to her like this.
"I love you," she whispered back, awash with the relief of being able to say it freely whenever she wanted. She pressed her lips to his jaw. "How do you always know what I need?"
"I know you," Bull replied, a smile in his voice. "And I don't know if you noticed, but I'm very good at what I do."
"You are," she conceded with a soft laugh. Then, "I don't want to go back."
Ellawyn admitted it quietly, like a confession. A childish one. No, even as a child she hadn't let herself speak her plaintive wishes to shirk her duty aloud.
She knew they had to go back. Her duty wasn't finished. Would never be finished. But for a moment, she wanted to be a child and pretend.
Bull was stroking up and down her back, her muscles arching with the pleasure of it. She felt him draw in a breath to speak and braced herself to be brought back to reality, for him to be his logical self and tell her it was time to go. That she could finish the job.
She'd do it, then. Follow him. Leave the safety of the temporary space they made, just like she had every other time they had to part.
He surprised her.
"Sounds good to me," Bull said. "You've done enough for tonight. The Inquisition could head out now and it wouldn't be an insult. Our job's done, seems a good time to go. Should probably show your face one more time, but I can find the others and get Josie to call for the carriages."
El pulled back. "You think so?"
Bull shrugged a shoulder, gave a nod. "I think we're all sick of this place."
"But the Empress–"
"I guarantee you she wants to put this might behind her way more than we do. But she won't retire for hours. Has to show her face until the last guest leaves, as a show of strength and defiance after all that assassination stuff. The quicker we're out of her hair, the happier we'll all be."
She smiled up at him. He smiled back. "Think you can hang out in the foyer and look important while I round up everyone else?"
Reinvigorated, bolstered, El squeezed Bull's shoulders tight and nodded, then moved for the door. "Sounds perfect.”
"Just a sec, El." He curled both hands around the back of her neck like a collar, arresting her completely and forcing her jaw up, her eyes leaping to him like magnets. The smug smile on his face had her heart thumping all over again. "Kiss me."
It should be so easy now. And when they were falling into bed, it was. Passion had cooled now but he still owned her in this space, still had the power to make her body leap to obey with the softest word and a glance. Between her legs she could still feel him, and he knew she could.
Lost in his gaze, heart wild, El didn't realize how infrequently she initiated this. He was too tall for her to casually rise on her toes to kiss him; he had to either duck down or lift her.
How many times had she actually kissed him of her own accord?
It wasn't lost on her that this was the thing she couldn't bear to do before. When sex wasn't on the table, and all she’d let him do was bind her, all the while wishing desperately that he did it out of love.
Now he asked for it, and it felt so easy to obey.
Their mouths met, El kissing him with shy hesitance that still clung to her despite their experience. Then Bull took over, deepening the kiss, consuming her with it until her toes curled and his fingers dug into her, sweetly claiming.
Then he exhaled, smiling down at her. “I’m proud of you. Proud to be standing next to you. Whatever happens, El, it’s gonna be fine.”
“I know.” A new confidence inside made her feel like it actually might be true. Ellawyn smiled back, ready to put this night behind them. To face tomorrow with new bravery, with Bull beside her – no longer hidden. “Let’s get out of here.”